Early to rise, early to bed, makes Bush unpresidential and a debate a dread.

Scientists have long divided people into two genetically determined chronotypes:
"larks" (early risers) and "owls" (who do better at night). Ludwig Maximilians
professor Till Roenneberg, who's running the VW study, found in a survey of
20,000 people that the majority fall somewhere between these two extremes.
Roenneberg developed a detailed questionnaire for factory workers to document
their sleep patterns. Comparing these results with a time-stamped test of the
workers' accuracy and concentration throughout the night shift, Roenneberg found
bright lights greatly improved the ability of this in-between group to cope with
shift work. They were least effective for extreme larks.

As I stated below, Bush seems to be a pretty extreme "lark", and is thus the "chronotype" most difficult to phase-shift. He is most definitely not in his best mental form at 9pm, and it shows.

Perhaps for the second debate they just had more time to phase-shift him. For a lark like that, it may take several days of painstakingly slow and gradual shift of the light-dark cycle to shift the circadian clock.

The bright lights in the room certainly helped. It was brighter than for the first debate.

They also probably put him on some sort of medication, an upper perhaps, resulting in his exploding off his stool every 2 minutes or so. It wore off by the end of the debate, though.

Watch him on Wednesday - they should be able to fix him by then.

Nothing can fix his character, though, and that will show no matter how much pharmacological knowledge they put into the project.

Kerry campaign should have insisted on doping control for the debates - it's a horse race anyway - so if Smarty Jones can get tested, why not Dummy George?